Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

The joy of cake, the simple life of a charity boss, and the 'jokes' of Miss Caitlin Moran

Have you ever heard of an outfit called Free Cakes for Kids? Forgive the cliché, but it does what it says on the tin. Community volunteers bake free birthday cakes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, after first checking with their families what sort they want (football and princess themes are very popular). Then they throw a little party for them.

There’s a national network of Free Cakes for Kids bakers, who are far too busy in the kitchen to appear on the Today programme and bellyache about “cuts” or global warming or whatever it is that charity spokesmen do these days.

Anyway, having discovered this joyful enterprise, I thought I should refresh my knowledge of cake, and bought the splendidly named Cake: A Global History by Nicola Humble. What a revelation! I now feel less embarrassed by my own long-standing obsession with the subject.

Jean-Paul Sartre, no less, said that “cakes are human, they are like faces. Spanish cakes are ascetic with a swaggering appearance, they crumble into dust under the tooth. Greek cakes are greasy like little oil lamps…

“German cakes are bulky and soft like shaving cream; they are made so that obese, easily tempted men can eat them indulgently without worrying what they taste like but simply to fill their mouths with sweetness. But Italian cakes have a cruel perfection… their harsh and gaudy colours take away any desire to eat them.”

Excuse me, but what about English cakes? As Nicola Humble explains, our nation can take credit for developing the classic sponge – “a cake for the household”, as she puts it, unlike French patisseries, which by comparison are “showy, transitory affairs”. We then exported sponge to the Anglosphere: cake-baking as a symbolic expression of hearth and home is found mainly in Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Which, not coincidentally, are the only countries where you can be sure that a cake is a cake and not tarted-up bread or some dessert in disguise. (No offence, fancy patissiers!)

I hadn’t realised cake-baking was such a big deal in Australia. The classic Aussie cake is called a Lamington, a single-portion cube of sponge dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in coconut.

It’s named after Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. Apparently the old boy was insulted by the association with “those bloody poofy woolly biscuits”.

I rang an Australian friend to ask if he liked Lamingtons. “Yes, but they’re immensely improved if you slice them open and slather them in cream,” he said. I’m sure he’s right. I’ve never eaten a Lamington, alas, but to quote Gervase Markham, author of The English Huswife of 1613, when making cakes “a little Cream is not amiss, but excellent good also”. (Is that a “hear! hear!” emanating from Downing Street?)

I also asked my friend which quality was more important to the Australian sponge-baker – lightness or moistness. “Moistness,” he said emphatically. “We don’t care how heavy our cakes are, just so long as you don’t need a fork-lift truck to get them up to your mouth.”

Gosh. I really have learnt a lot about cakes this week. If you, too, are inquisitive about this delectable foodstuff, then I can thoroughly recommend Humble’s little study, published by Reaktion Books. More important, if you are seized by a philanthropic urge as you slice into your Victoria sponge, or guiltily push one of those American cupcakes into your face, then look no further than Free Cakes for Kids, which needs donations to support its marvellous work.

The simple life has its rewards

Talking of charities, I’ve been rooting around the website of Cafod, the English Catholic bishops’ overseas aid agency and one of the most politicised and self-righteous lobby groups in the country. My latest discovery: notes for a “workshop” (natch) in which students stand in a circle and lean on each other in order to “illustrate solidarity”. Cafod likes to nag Catholics to “livesimply” (sic) and this is part of something called a “livesimply enrichment day”. I don’t know how simply Cafod’s director Chris Bain lives, but he certainly knows about enrichment: this week it was revealed that his annual salary has increased from £80,074 to £87,567 since 2009.

Same idea, different pope

So spectacular was the success of Pope Francis’s World Youth Day in Brazil that another claimant to the See of Peter is thinking of getting in on the act.

Pope Michael, who lives in Topeka, Kansas, was known as David Bawden until 1990, when he was elected in a conclave of six people including his mother and late father. “I would like to have a World Youth Day that is truly Catholic and devotional,” he told a friend of mine. (Subtext: Francis is not a Catholic, let alone Pope.)

“That’s wonderful,” said my friend. “Maybe you could hold it in your back garden?” To which the Pontiff replied: “I will preach to one or to a million. And if God wants it to be in my back garden, then so be it.” Which is batty but also rather sweet, don’t you think?

Twitter 'silence’ is golden

For connoisseurs of Twitter hypocrisy, last Sunday was special. Various feminists left the network for 24 hours in protest at threatening tweets. But the stunt backfired.

Why? First, many feminists refused to take part. Second, #twittersilence was fronted by Caitlin Moran, a columnist famous for crazed invective.

I took advantage of Moran’s silence to quote some of her more charming tweets: eg, “I’ve already spread the rumour we both have Aids and I’m planning for it to 'go fatal’ around May 3”; “This campaign is going viral, like Aids”; “This hangover is so bad I might have Aids”. Also, her use of the words “mong”, “tranny” and “retard”.

Moran’s fans exploded. “Any excuse to discredit a woman.” “How brave of you to make sure women can’t be funny.” Etc.

Back on air, Moran refused to apologise for the Aids “in-jokes” but clarified that she was “tearfully admiring of all trans people”. Tearfully admiring? Now that really is funny.

Goodness that flies under the radar

I’ve been thinking about women veterans of the Second World War and how little recognition they’ve received – because they didn’t ask for it. The other day I was talking to a remarkable lady who served in the Army; she worked with the developers of radar on a part of the south coast where the bombs rained down. Funnily enough, I knew this lady a very long time before she talked about her wartime experience; but her modesty didn’t come as a surprise, since she also spent years as a Catholic hospital chaplain’s assistant, quietly bringing comfort and the Sacrament of the Eucharist to people in distress. Oh, and she’s also my wonderful mother and celebrates her 90th birthday next week. Many happy returns!

PS: I've just told my mother about all the lovely birthday messages from readers of this blog and she was so pleased (and surprised – the workings of the internet are a bit of a mystery to her). Thanks to everyone who has been so kind.